Generally, a connector has male and female connecting parts for engaging and disengaging the connector. While connecting, the male and female parts will engage each other. While disconnecting, the male and female parts will disengage each other. In some cases, either the male or female part of the connector may not be visible or easily accessible to the operator for engaging and disengaging. In some cases, the force required for engagement and disengagement of a connector may be high. In situations where it is desirable to disengage the connector quickly, such as during an emergency, the inaccessibility and/or high level of force may make it infeasible to disengage the connector quickly.
In case of medical imaging apparatus, a connecting assembly is used for fixedly coupling a mobile patient positioner to a gantry at the time of medical imaging. In an emergency situation, the patient needs to be taken out of the gantry even while the apparatus is performing its operation. For removing the patient from the gantry, the positioner where the patient is lying has to be detached from the imaging apparatus. But during scanning, the positioner and the imaging apparatus are electrically connected via the connector. So first one needs to detach the electrical connection and this could be achieved by disengaging the connector quickly. But in many of the imaging apparatus, the female of the connector may be inside the imaging apparatus and may not be visible or accessible to the operator. Thus immediate disconnecting of the connector is difficult.
Some solutions used for emergency egress is disengaging the connector by pulling a cable attached to the connector. By doing so, the male part of the connector will get detached from the female part. But the pulling force, which needs to be applied to disengage the connector, is substantially high and this will reduce the life of the connector. In addition, re-engagaing the connector to resume the operation of the apparatus is difficult as the female connector is not visible or easily accessible to the operator. Also the female part of the connector is rigidly fixed inside the imaging apparatus. For engaging the connector, the male and female parts of the connector should be aligned with precision before engaging, the failure of which may result in destroying the connector or failing at the attempt of connecting.
In certain industrial and military applications it is necessary to have a connector assembly wherein the connector need to be engaged and disengaged very often. Engaging and disengaging the connectors very often may reduce the life of the connectors, which are often expensive. Also while disengaging the connector by pulling the cable associated with it, the connector may often fall down on the device to which it is connected and the life of the connector or the device may be reduced.
Thus there exists a need to provide a mechanism for protecting the connector from the adverse impacts of engaging and disengaging, and also a mechanism to engage and disengage the connector quickly and easily.